A couple of years ago, I got into my head to build a guitar with an aluminium T-beam as the main structural component. Back then, I imagined that it'd be pretty easy to build.

I'm not quite there yet. Not at all, actually. But I've improved as a craftsman and tried a number of things with guitars until now.

This is the continuing story of the many interesting detours I take on my way to making the T-beam guitar.

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

The Bobber - the black SG is further reduced

My black SG has had to go through further alterations. I am trying to see, how much you can modify a stock guitar into something ergonomic. Since cutting away is easier than adding on, i've carved a "shark bite" for thigh rest. It allows the guitar to be balanced in a classical playing position with the neck pointing upwards.

On the bass side, I carved a concave area for the strumming/picking hand. It does away with the sharp edge and makes it easier to hold the guitar.

Both were covered in damp-shaped leather, fastened with epoxy glue and copper tacks.

The shark bite made it necessary to relocate the controls, so I added a series/parallel switch mounted in a slanted copper pipe end cap. The jack enclosure is from copper tube and brass plate. The volume and tone knobs are located in what's left of the original control cavity.

The tip of the bass side horn was replaced with a brass one, while the length of the treble side horn was reduced considerably and topped off with a brass cap.

I am going to abandon the new coarse tuner system for now, so next steps on this guitar might be tidying up the headstock brass plate and remount the old high e coarse tuner.